A Ultra High Frequency Miniaturized Wideband Vivaldi Antenna Design

In this paper, a compact wideband Vivaldi antenna for airborne electronic warfare (EW) applications is presented with experimental results. The antenna is fed by a microstrip-slotline balun with operational frequency range from 0.35 to 0.8GHz. This novel design employ both tapered slot edge (TSE) and resistance-loading technology to effectively reduce antenna aperture. The final antenna size is only <tex xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">$170\text{mm}\times 185\text{mm}\times 1.6\text{mm}$</tex> (without coaxial connector) with measured <tex xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">$\text{gain}\geq-3\text{dB},\text{VSWR}\leq 2.2$</tex> and 3dB beamwidth between 50° and 115°. Besides, radiation patterns at various frequencies are in good consistence which also fulfills passive direction finding (DF) array design requirements.